Microsoft to give away free antivirus

Microsoft is poised to start giving away security software. The company is reportedly trialling free anti-virus software internally and said the beta version would be released “soon”.

Called Morro, the software will tackle viruses but lack the broader range of utilities, such as parental locks, found in paid-for security suites. Morro will be Microsoft’s second venture in the highly competitive security market. Microsoft’s first attempt revolved around the Windows Live OneCare service that did not succeed in turning many customers away from rivals such as Symantec and McAfee.


Microsoft plans to discontinue Live OneCare once the Morro software is ready.

No specific date has been given for when Morro will be released, but in the past Microsoft has said it would be out by the end of 2009 at the latest.

Microsoft said Morro would tackle viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans.

Janice Chaffin, Symantec’s president of consumer products, said customers wanted more than just basic protection.

“A full internet security suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected,” she said.

Security software for home PCs typically cost around £30-40 and often allow users to install protections on more than one computer.

Other companies, such as AVG and Alwil already produce and distribute free anti-virus products.

Fake help

In its latest update, Microsoft added code that detects and deletes the widespread Internet Antivirus Pro family of fake security software programs.

Such programs, also known as scareware, have been proving more popular with hi-tech criminals in recent months.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group estimated that there were 9,287 bogus anti-malware program in circulation in December 2008 - a rise of 225% since January 2008.

The US government has moved to shut down some companies peddling the programs that falsely claim to find malicious software on PCs and then charge for the non-existent threats to be removed.

In addition, the Internet Antivirus Pro software displays fake Windows security messages to try and trick people into thinking the product is legitimate. The software also contains a password stealer that watches where people go online and grabs login data.

                                 source: BBC

News : Indian Companies Among Top Ten IT Infrastructure Outsourcers

Indian outsourcing companies figure among the top ten worldwide in IT infrastructure services, reflecting the growing appeal of offshore delivery of these services, according to outsourcing consultancy Technology Partners International (TPI).

      Indian outsourcers figured in the top ten by value of contracts closed in the first half of this year, not only in their traditionally strong area of application development and maintenance (ADM), but also in infrastructure services, Siddharth Pai, a partner at TPI, said on Thursday. 

       That Indian companies such as HCL Technologies and Wipro have made it to the top ten in infrastructure services, a relatively new area in IT services for Indian outsourcers, suggests that customers are now considering seriously the option of remote delivery of these services from offshore locations like India.

        The market for outsourcing has shrunk to US$40.2 billion in contracts in the first half of this year from $51.5 billion in the first half of last year. TPI monitors contracts of a value of $25 million and above.

       It is unlikely that the outsourcing market this year will grow to last year's level of $93.1 billion, and is more likely to end this year with total contracts of less than $80 billion, Pai said.

      Top Indian outsourcers have reported flat or declining revenue in the quarter ended June 30. Infosys, India's second largest outsourcer, has forecast that revenue for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2010 will decline by 3.1 to 4.6 percent over revenue in the previous year.

source : pcworld.com

What is blogging all about?

Ok why was this blog started by me? What does this blog intend to do? What is the history of blogging? The first two questions i can answer very easily because i know why i started this blog and what all i intended to do with this blog. I wanted to share all the technology stuff around with people from the blogosphere. But now the blogosphere has completely changed. People are doing business with blogs and people make money by writing content on it. A self explanatory and a very good about Choosing the right blogging software can be found at web-articles.info, where one can submit his own article on just about anything and could get positive responses for it. The article about blogging history goes on to say this;  Blogging is really about three things:
• Information Telling

• Relationships Building

• Knowledge management 

   Do note that the blogs specified are related to business and not a time passer blogger. Nowadays business people and their kind have started to blog about all their business plans and discuss it very openly among other bloggers because it gives them an exposure to business ideas and how to groom these ideas into practice. The article then explains how to choose the right blogging software for yourself. Really worth a read!

The end of DRM in iTunes - Apple finally removes DRM

Apple Inc., the most popular source of music in the United States, stripped copy protection from all the songs in its iTunes music store and disclosed plans to charge as little as 69 cents a track. Under a variable pricing plan, songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29 starting in April, with most albums going for $9.99, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller said yesterday at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. He spoke in place of chief executive Steve Jobs, who said Monday he’s undergoing treatment for a “hormone imbalance.” Apple had drawn criticism for using so-called digital rights management on most tracks, prompting Jobs two years ago to make a public plea to music labels to change their licensing terms.
The protections prevented customers from listening to music on unauthorized devices and limited the copies they could burn onto CDs. The company also faced competition from Amazon.com Inc., which charges as little as 79 cents a song - with no copy protection. While record labels liked having DRM, they also wanted variable prices, letting them charge more for popular songs, said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner at the consulting firm Booz & Co. in Florham Park, N.J. Until now, Apple sold most tracks for 99 cents each. Starting yesterday, about 8 million songs were being offered without copy-protection software as part of the iTunes Plus service, Apple said. By the end of March, the other 2 million songs in its catalog will be available without such software.

Microsoft releases Windows 7 and is available for download

The first public trial, or beta, version of Windows 7 has been released. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer used his keynote speech at CES to announce that software developers would get at the trial version on 7 January. On 9 January members of the public will get the chance to download the successor to Windows for themselves. Mr Ballmer said Windows 7 would be the pivot of a broader Microsoft push to improve the way its separate software and service families work together. In delivering the opening keynote, Mr Ballmer has taken over from Bill Gates - who in 2008 bowed out of day-to-day involvement with the company he founded. In a nod to the chilly economic climate, Mr Ballmer said: “We face some really big challenges. We are all feeling it and its impact will likely be with us for some time.”
But, he said, the global economic slowdown would not hobble the pace of technological change. “I believe our digital lives will only continue to get richer,” said Mr Ballmer. “There’s no turning back from the connected world.” The newest version of the Windows operating system would, he said, be the “linchpin” of an effort to make it easier for customers to do more with the different Microsoft gadgets and services they use. Microsoft is expected to cap the number of copies of the beta version of Windows 7 available to the public. The minimum requirements for running Windows 7 are a PC with a 1 Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of disk space, 128MB of video memory and support for DX9 graphics. Some of the Windows 7’s features help it work with other devices. A “home group” system makes it straightforward to enrol PCs, Xbox consoles, media servers and other gadgets into a local network that can share media and content.